Bootstrapping, also known as booting, may refer to a self-sustaining process of loading basic software, such as an operating system, into memory in order to load and/or manage additional software on an as needed basis. A network element, such as a router or switch, may bootstrap from data stored on a local physical drive. In some cases a network administrator may wish to ensure that a plurality of network elements boot by employing a consistent set of basic software. Accordingly, a disk image of the basic software may be created and loaded onto each network element. For example, a Live Compact Disc (CD) may be employed. A Live CD may be a complete read only bootable computer installation, including an operating system, which may be run from a CD input without installation into a secondary storage, such as a hard drive. A Live CD may consume significantly less memory than an installation CD, but may still require the Live CD image be present in a local persistent media, such as a CD-Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) tray. Such a system may employ a bootloader, such as uBoot to boot from a local image. For example, uBoot may be employed by embedded systems that do not comprise a Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) to boot from a local image.